Viewers find lovable idiot TV characters enjoyable to watch and oddly comforting
The Washington Post
(Editor’s note: This story contains light spoilers from season one of “The Good Place.”)
Collectively, we know more about the world now than at any other point in human history.
So why do we love watching idiots on TV?
The lovable idiot trope is as old and persistent as the television sitcom itself, from Lou Costello on the 1950s’ “The Abbott and Costello Show” to Joey on “Friends.” Adding a buffoon to the cast of a show makes perfect sense for comedies; the lovable idiot serves as foil to a straight man. Leave it to the dummy to deliver reliable punchlines.
But there’s something oddly comforting and delightful about a character whose defining quality is total stupidity, especially these days when we’re overwhelmed by so much information. TV shows can be an escape pod from everyday worries, existential dread and constant news alerts. Watching someone live in blissful ignorance? Sounds like a vacation.
This fall, TV features an array of such fools with even more screentime than they’ve had before, from freeloading slacker Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul) on Netflix’s “BoJack Horseman,” to the resident dummy on NBC’s “The Good Place,” the beautiful Jason Mendoza (Manny Jacinto).
In season five of “BoJack,” released last month, Todd’s stupidity is turned on its head for comedic effect. He’s somehow the only one who realizes the new CEO of a major media company is not a corporate genius, but rather a sex robot spouting pre-programmed sexual innuendos. (He foolishly built the robot, after all.)
In season two of Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” which was released Friday, we delve deeper into the mystifying psyche of Coach Steve. Voiced by Nick Kroll, the coach’s ignorance is so pathetic that it’s simultaneously sad and gross. The guy teaching hygiene and sex-ed to middle schoolers knows nothing about sex and thinks he’s supposed to chew gum left under gym bleachers.
The jokes we get from lovable idiots often rely on the element of surprise, like how Jason Mendoza manages to constantly make everything even dumber than you could imagine. “We are going to eat, breath and vape DANCE!” he tells his dance crew in season three. “I want you thinking about dance 24-7. That means every day you think 20 thoughts about dance, for seven minutes.”
On “The Office,” Ellie Kemper’s Erin Hannon was somehow dumber than Michael Scott and definitely sweeter. “Disposable cameras are fun, but it does seem wasteful,” she says, after snapping a photo and immediately tossing the camera in the garbage. “And you never get to see your pictures.” Those kind of unpredictable jokes added some fresh air to the show at a time when other characters’ behavior was becoming predictable. (After so many seasons, we knew Dwight would say something related to bears or beets).
“Parks and Recreation” co-creator Michael Shur has said that the funniest line on that show was improvised by Chris Pratt, playing lovable idiot Andy Dwyer. In the scene, Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) has the flu and is being led out of the office. Andy sits at a computer, telling her, “Leslie, I typed your symptoms into the thing up here, and it says you could have network connectivity problems.”
The lovable idiot isn’t necessarily shallow, and the character’s story can actually be quite profound. During season three of “BoJack,” Todd comes out as asexual. “We were thinking, what’s a meatier plotline we can give Todd, who up until that point has been mostly comic relief,” said show creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg. “We thought about it — can we put him in a relationship? It didn’t feel right, and we couldn’t quite put our finger on why. And the reason was, that Todd is asexual.”
While that initial conclusion may have been based on some “stereotyping going on there or some shorthand,” Mr. BobWaksberg said, since then the show’s writers have tried to become more familiar with the asexual community and added other asexual characters. And Todd’s portrayal has had impact: Mr. Bob-Waksberg said a woman recently approached him and Paul, who voices Todd, saying, “I didn’t realize it until I watched ‘BoJack Horseman’ and I saw Todd explain the way he felt, and I realized that’s how I felt, too, and I never knew that was a thing, so thank you for giving it that megaphone and allowing me to be aware of who I was.”
Making these characters appealing often requires tapping into a child-like quality. Ms. Kemper has said Erin was originally written to be “more sarcastic and dry,” but she became more cheery and optimistic to mirror Ms. Kemper’s personality. On “Big Mouth,” Coach Steve’s stupidity in season two devolves into him asking another character a series of unending “but why?” questions, as if he’s a 5-year-old, and it’s enough to break that character’s tough exterior.
Mr. Jacinto told Vulture that after reading about his character, Jason Mendoza, he thought to play it “very bro-ish.”
“Then when I went in for the callback, they were like, ‘We want him to still have that dim-wittedness but also make sure to have this sweet side of him,’” Mr. Jacinto said. “That’s a very big part of who Jason is, that he has this innocence and sweetness about him, which makes him more likable.”
The perfect lovable idiots are curious, not willfully ignorant. They may be naive, but that helps keep them from being mean-spirited. And their earnestness gives us hope. We keep complaining that “everything is dumb.” Thank goodness some of that dumbness includes characters like Jason Mendoza.